White House embraces cool roofs

[Enrique]

http://www.miller-mccune.com/environment/white-house-signs-up-for-white-roofs-19812/

Back in spring 2009, Miller-McCune reported — in two separate articles (here and here)—on the impressive virtues of “cool roofs” in the fight against climate change. Simply by painting urban surfaces white or a light color, we noted, “the carbon emissions of all 600 million of the world’s cars could be off-set for 18 to 20 years — at a savings equivalent to at least $1 trillion worth of CO2 reductions.”

At the time, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the Bay Area were lobbying the Obama administration to embrace the “cool roofs strategy” as a means of reducing nation’s energy usage while simultaneously increasing the Earth’s “albedo” — the degree to which it reflects solar radiation.

Earlier this week the White House acknowledged their entreaties, announcing that it will push to install cool roofs on the Department of Energy and other federal buildings. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu put it, “Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest-cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change.”

According to researchers at the LBNL, cool roofs can reduce the need for air conditioning in buildings by up to 52 percent. Perhaps even more impressive, they could potentially offset two years of global greenhouse gas emissions by reflecting the heat of the sun back into space — a tool to “geo-engineer” the atmosphere.

(...)

[Exilednight]

1. Did Obama have the solar panels reinstalled on the WH? ......

I know President Carter put them up originally, but then raygun came along and had them taken down.

Does anyone know if they have ever been reinstalled?

[NYC_SKP]

3. Yes and no. Yes, there is solar. No, they did not "reinstall" the old ones.

Carter had solar thermal water heating panels, not photovoltaic, just to correct any misunderstandings about the panels.

Lot's of solar on the whitehouse grounds:







Solar at the White House

Solar energy has returned to the White House complex. While the White House has kept pretty quiet about it, three solar installations were completed last summer on White House buildings and are now generating renewable power and hot water. Here are the details:
Solar hot water panels on roof
White House cabana showing flush-mount solar water heating system.
Installing the solar panels
Photos: Evergreen Solar, Inc.

Installing PV panels on a National Park Service maintenance building at the White House.

In July and August, three solar energy systems, designed by Steven Strong of Solar Design Associates in Harvard, Massachusetts, were installed on two separate White House buildings. The first of these, a large 8.75 peak-kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system, was installed on the National Park Service maintenance building located in the southwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) White House grounds. This system consists of 167 EC-51 PV modules, each rated at 51 watts, manufactured by Evergreen Solar of Marlboro, Massachusetts. Three 2,500-watt Sunny Boy inverters, provided by SMA Americas (a division of the German manufacturer SMA), convert this DC electricity into AC power that is fed into the White House electricity grid.

On the same building, a residential-scale solar water heating system was installed to provide hot water for landscape maintenance personnel. This system is comprised of two 4' x 8' (1.2 x 2.4 m) flat-plate collectors made by SunEarth, Inc., of Ontario, California. These panels were installed using a typical stand-off mount in a drain-back configuration (for more on solar water heating.

The third installation is a five-panel, building-integrated solar hot water system on the White House cabana next to the presidential pool and spa. This system is integrated into a terne-coated, standing-seam copper roof. The inset design of the panels provides a relatively flush profile (see photo). Hot water produced by this system heats a hot tub and shower, with any extra energy going into the outdoor pool. The absorber plates for these panels were made by SunEarth, but the rest of the system was site-manufactured for better integration with the roof.








http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/solarwhitehouse.htm

[Froward69]

4. Awesome... I did not know this.

[glowing]

2. Why is it that this govt isn't hiring people (there are a ton of out of work

home builders) to go block by block, city by city.. installing solar panels, energy efficient windows, and these "cool roofs" as well as bringing older buildings and homes up to today's building codes. I know there is a tax subsidy to do these things to one's home, but many people are barely hanging onto their homes, let alone going out and "enhancing" shit. It would create a massive energy savings nation wide.. AND while the builders are re-fitting American homes, businesses, and municipalities, another sector of builders and engineers can work on creating a modern electric grid that doesn't black out everytime the wind blows too hard. AND many cities and towns need modern sewer and water treatment facilities.. as well as a better utilization of fresh water (the next resource we will become increasingly desperate for).

Sooo many people on the right and on the left want this type of money and time spent improving people's lives and America.. instead of useless wars and subsidies to big oil. Logical does not compute with D.C.

Oh and let's not forget a modern transportation system that utilizes high-speed trains and trolly's and metro travel. Not everyone enjoys driving or likes to have to own a car and all that is involved with maintaining a car.

[lunatica]

5. You have excellent ideas

It would be wonderful if some of that stimulus money was spent to pay people to install solar panels on every house in the country, and not just to reward those who install them in their own homes. Not everyone can afford to do anything to make their homes better. I can't. I'm just hanging onto my condo by the skin of my teeth. It's getting really hard to make ends meet.

[glowing]

6. if only it were to happen. paying people to sit around worrying over finding a job or paying people

to work that makes america better. and think an industry devoted to modern public transport and trains gears up an entire private sector of growth as well. and people with jobs pay bills and spend money. it doesn't seem like rocket science to connect the dots. shoot fdr gave us a working model.

[applegrove]

7. That is a great idea.